More emotions swept through me as I remembered lying in bed on hot summer nights with the windows open, the strains of music floating through the air as my mother would play in the garden. It had always soothed me, made me feel like everything was right in the world. I'd fall asleep to her music and then it had filled my dreams.

At the sudden sound of a click, I whirled around. Someone was in the house! The front door opened, then closed. Decisive, purposeful footsteps came down the hall.

A wave of fear ran through me. My gaze darted around the room. There was a back door by the kitchen that led into the yard, but the footsteps were getting closer. There was no way I could escape. I held the violin in front of me like a shield, gasping in alarm when a man came into the room with a baseball bat in his hand, a look of grim determination in his dark eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Don't come any closer," I ordered as the man took a step forward, and I took another step back.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded, a suspicious and threatening gleam in his gaze.

He had thick and wild brown hair that almost hit his shoulders and appeared to be in his early thirties. There was a shadow of a beard on a face that was strikingly attractive in a dark, intense kind of way. He wore faded jeans and a maroon T-shirt that was covered with splashes of paint, and his muscled arms were heavily tattooed.

"Answer me," he ordered, still holding the bat like a weapon. "What are you doing in here?"

"What are you doing in here?" I countered. "This is my mother's house. Who are you?"

"Your mother's house?" he echoed, surprise filling his gaze as he lowered the bat. "Laura has a daughter?"

"She has two daughters. But when she was my mother, her name was Kim."

"What do you mean—her name was Kim?" he asked in confusion.

"First, tell me who you are."

"Kade Beckham. I live downstairs."

I blew out a breath. "Oh, you're the renter the police told me about."

"Yes. I heard someone moving around up here and after what happened earlier today, I thought I better check it out."

"You should have brought a gun instead of a bat. My mother was shot."

"I know," he said tersely. "I heard."

"But you weren't here when it happened?"

"I was at the gallery. I arrived an hour after she was taken to the hospital. The police were here, conducting their investigation. How is your mother doing?"

"She's critical but stable for the moment."

"I'm glad she's hanging in there."

"You said you were at the gallery?" I asked.

"I'm an artist."

That explained the paint on his shirt.

"What's your name?" he continued.